Collisionless dynamics in two-dimensional bosonic gases

Abstract

We study the dynamics of dilute and ultracold bosonic gases in a quasi two-dimensional (2D) configuration and in the collisionless regime. We adopt the 2D Landau-Vlasov equation to describe a three-dimensional gas under very strong harmonic confinement along one direction. We use this effective equation to investigate the speed of sound in quasi 2D bosonic gases, i.e. the sound propagation around a Bose-Einstein distribution in collisionless 2D gases. We derive coupled algebraic equations for the real and imaginary parts of the sound velocity, which are then solved taking also into account the equation of state of the 2D bosonic system. Above the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless critical temperature we find that there is rapid growth of the imaginary component of the sound velocity which implies a strong Landau damping. Quite remarkably, our theoretical results are in good agreement with very recent experimental data obtained with a uniform 2D Bose gas of $^{87}$Rb atoms.